The title is somewhat misleading, for the young girl at the centre of the story talks plenty when she feels safe. There’s just not many places in her life where that happens. Her name is Cáit (newcomer Catherine Clinch, more on whom later) and she lives in the Gaeltacht, that is, the Irish-speaking part of Ireland.
But there’s no safety at home, where she’s sandwiched between many sullen siblings. An even meaner Da (Michael Patric) and an overwhelmed, heavily pregnant Mam (Kate Nic Chonaonaigh). And there’s no respite at school, where she struggles with her reading and the snide remarks of the other kids. After an incident, it’s decided that Cáit will be spending the summer hours away, with Mam’s older cousin Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley) and her husband Seán (Andrew Bennett). And while the summer that changes everything is a hoary cliché in art, it’s desperately rare for a movie to be as quietly impactful as An Cailín Ciúin.
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No one asks Cáit [pronounced Caught] her opinions about this plan, although it’s clear no one would listen to anything she might have to say about it. Mam packs a suitcase, and Da drives her there mostly in silence. They are greeted warmly by Eibhlín and Seán, but the strain is obvious; the lack of fondness between the adults is mutual. Da has a cup of tea and informs Eibhlín [pronounced Aileen] and Seán that Cáit will eat them out of house and home. It’s so awkward he refuses to say goodbye, and drives off forgetting Cáit’s suitcase is still in the car. Some old clothes are found – clean, well-made, but a little too big for her. That night Cáit wets the bed; it takes Eibhlín a moment, but she blames the mattress for crying as she strips the sheets. At this, Cáit relaxes a little.
It’s a working farm – although it’s probably for budgetary reasons we never get to see the cows – but Seán angrily rejects suggestions from his mates that Cáit is there to work. But she does help, and is of an age to do so eagerly. She learns to give a sickly calf a bottle, and goes with Eibhlín to fetch the water from the well.
On returning to the house with the milk pails Seán times her as she runs down the drive to fetch the post. “You’re a gust of wind, girl,” he tells her. It’s possibly the highest praise Cáit has ever received. Eibhlín is not quite as relaxed; she has a sense of proper behaviour with rules for living. How to wash your body in the tub, how to brush your hair every night before bed – which is often the kind of structure kids secretly cherish. Time passes slowly, and quickly at the same time.
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There’s plenty of space for Cáit to observe, and consider – and Miss Clinch is an incredible find in her film debut, with intelligent eyes in her pretty face soaking up every morsel of the world around her. You can tell she respects Eibhlín, but likes Seán. It’s Seán who sneaks her biscuits, but it’s Eibhlín who does the day-to-day work of keeping a child clean and neat.
Miss Crowley and Mr Bennett have the rapport of a long-married couple so certain of each other they communicate through their silences together. Certainly Mr Bennett brings the air seen in many weary middle-aged men, who hold their tongues and let their wives express their feelings for them. Miss Crowley’s part is a little more thankless – Eibhlín’s work is less glamorous but just as essential to the farm, but Miss Crowley gives her a sense of herself in that she knows her value, knows her husband loves her, and that the work she does is its own reward.
But it’s also Eibhlín who insists on bringing Cáit to a wake in the village, and it’s Eibhlín who allows Cáit to be walked home by a neighbour called Úna (Joan Sheehy, absolute perfection). The moment they’re alone Úna interrogates Cáit about how Eibhlín runs her home – whether she uses butter or margarine in her pastry, for example – and then reveals a fact well known in the village, but a complete surprise to Cáit. Seán comes after them as quickly as possible, but a little too late.
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What Cáit’s knowledge of this fact does is change her understanding of life on the farm, which is expressed only in her body language. Director Colm Bairéad, who adapted the screenplay from a story by Clare Keegan, and editor John Murphy seem to know instinctively how to give space to their character’s thoughts. And in so doing, gives space to the audience to observe and consider alongside them.
This quiet is organic, natural and not at all forced, and certainly not soundless; the natural world around them is full of life, even if there’s little music in the film. And it’s in this quiet that Cáit learns to trust herself and her own reactions to the world. This sense of herself is something she was not able to find in her rowdy home with her difficult family, but under Seán and Eibhlín’s attentions she’s able to figure herself out. As the movie progresses and some small tragedies are narrowly averted, the question becomes what Cáit will do with this new knowledge.
Movies about growing up tend to be fantastical. Think Labyrinth, with the young girl on her quest to save her baby brother from dozens of Muppets and an alarmingly sexual David Bowie. Or Kiki’s Delivery Service, where a young witch has only her flying broomstick and talking cat to help as she finds herself a career and friends in a strange new city.
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An Cailín Ciúin’s depiction of growing up is mostly how someone learns to find safety within their own thoughts while going about an ordinary day. Peeling potatoes, fetching water, sweeping, having a bath. It all builds to a devastatingly emotional finale, one all the more powerful for being so obvious, but with these unspoken changes affecting absolutely everyone.
An Cailín Ciúin has recently become the most financially successful Irish-language movie of all time. An admittedly low bar to clear – but the fact it was made in Irish, despite all the characters being bilingual with English, is the sign of a sea change in Irish film. For years Irish cinema’s sense of identity and international success was built around musical crowd-pleasers like The Commitments and Once with not a word of Irish in them. But the barnstorming success in 2018 of Black ‘47 (an Irish-language kill-the-English shoot-em-up set during the famine) caused the entire industry to sit up and reconsider. While the international success in 2019 of Korean-language Parasite might just have been the final impetus.
Audiences worldwide go to movies to see their own lives reflected, it’s true. But they also go for an authentic window into other lives in other worlds. The fact that stories set in Ireland now have the confidence to be made in our own language means that there’s a new dynamism coming. And it will be fascinating to see what An Cailín Ciúin leads to next.
